A Dark Night
by Noafii
Summary: Harley Quinn. Batman. A night that just might be the beginning of something new...


It was a dark night, a thin silver moon hidden by thick clouds. Neon lights flashing, cars whizzing by, Gotham was at its prime in the late hours. She was out of breath, laughing with him in the passenger's seat as he drove at a crazy speed. As usual, they were running from the big bad bat, this time having stolen a bunch of shiny things from a heavily protected vault at the national bank. With her favourite clown king by her side, she had never felt more alive. She looked back from the window, and saw the bat mobile quickly catching up. "Faster, Puddin'! Batsy's catching up!" she squealed.

Mr J looked at her with a maniac grin, pushed down on a button, and the car lurched into even crazier speed mode, twisting and turning, with other cars honking and hitting their brakes to avoid getting crushed. Soon they were at a clearing away from the main road, nothing but smooth grass in front of them, and a few hundred meters away, a giant drop into the sea: a cliff. _Oh no_. "Mista Jay, you know I can't swim!" She screamed. The Joker looked at her and smirked. "Well too bad Harls, you're just gonna have to learn now, or else have fun with the fishies down there!" He kept going straight ahead, laughing wildly in anticipation of the jump coming up. Okay, this was so not fun anymore. Harley was panicking, frozen in her seat, covering her face with her hands and bracing for the worst.

The car suddenly plunged into the air and she felt weightless as she was jostled around, and then suddenly, they were surrounded with water. The car was sinking surprisingly quickly, and Joker smashed his window and jumped out, without so much as a second glance back. Now Harley knew she should follow his lead and jump out, but as the car continued to sink, she remained frozen in fear, her panic rising as fast as the water level. It was now too late to just jump out; the water was rushing in through the smashed window at too high a pressure. She was stuck. She cursed herself for that moment of hesitation that now left her trapped, but she had to do something. "Think, Harley, think!" She muttered to herself, trying in vain to open the doors, smash the other window, anything... until she finally succumbed to the water, feeling her chest tightening and tasting the seawater before it burned into her windpipe. She couldn't breathe. The last thing Harley remembered was a dark shadow coming towards her right before she surrendered to her own darkness...

Harley woke up with a start. She put her hand on her heart, to try to slow down her breathing, and calm down. How many times would she have this nightmare? It's been weeks since that incident, but she couldn't get over it, that sense of abandonment when Joker left her all alone, trapped in that car. She reached out across the bed for him, longing for reassurance that she's not alone anymore, but his spot was empty. Super villains don't really sleep much. "It's okay Harls" she thought to herself. "You didn't die, you're back here safe and sound with Puddin', aren't you?"

Harley recalled the rest of the events from that fateful night. She wasn't completely conscious, but she knew she was in the strong arms of The Dark Knight, soaked in seawater, but still feeling some warmth radiating from her lover's enemy. The saviour of Gotham City, who was now also the saviour of Harley Quinn. It was a brief second of peace, before he gently put her down and turned her head to the side, giving her mouth-to-mouth, and that's when she really woke up, coughing and retching out seawater onto the sidewalk, and even onto his cloak. She held on to him, her heart racing, and laughed, "Oh Batsy, ain't you a dummy! You coulda went after Mista Jay, but now it's too late, you ain't gonna catch him." The bat pushed her hands away, and pierced her with his gaze. "Don't be too sure about that," he said in his brooding accent, reaching for both her arms, and holding them in one hand, dragging her towards his bat mobile as she kicked and struggled against him, "Let go of me, Bat! You know Mista Jay's coming for me anyway!"

"Yeah? Like he came for you today?" That shut her up. He'd hit a sensitive spot. He looked down at her curiously "You do know he doesn't actually love you, don't you? You're just another one of his victims, Quinn." "N-n-no! You're wrong Batman, you don't know anything!" She pushed against him, eyes welling with tears, which caught him off-guard for a second, and Harley saw her opening and gave him a kick with all her might, pulling her hands out of his grip and laughing as she ran away from him with all her might. As she ran into the night, Harley didn't know why, but she was a bit disappointed that the bat didn't catch up to her.

Later on, she met up with Joker who apologised, and, on the surface, things went right back to normal, but she couldn't get that dark night out of her head, and for some aggravating reason, she couldn't get the dark knight out of her head either.


End file.
